So might meet and pass, perhaps, on a weedier stream Other boats, no more heavily charged, to a wet, black oar.

Bailey watched the boat move away with its sick grey men Still yelling stingless insults through tired lips. He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Oh⁠—” he roared, Then he sank back, coughing. “They look pretty bad,” he said, “They look glad to get back. They ain’t such bad Rebs at that.”

The boat’s nose touched the wharf. It swung and was held. They got out. They didn’t move toward the camp at first. They looked back at the river first and the other side, Without saying words. They stood there thus for a space Like a row of tattered cranes at the edge of a stream, Blinking at something.